'Mockingbird' values stand the test of time

The movie theater parking lot was jammed and young people, huddled in coats and blankets to ward off a cold November chill, patiently awaited the first showing of "Breaking Dawn - Part 2" on Thursday night.

The movie theater parking lot was jammed and young people, huddled in coats and blankets to ward off a cold November chill, patiently awaited the first showing of "Breaking Dawn - Part 2" on Thursday night.

The film is the fifth of the four-part "Twilight" series written by Stephenie Meyer.

I wasn't there to see that popular sequel. Nor was I there for the 23rd rendition of James Bond, although one hardly needs a good reason to check out Daniel Craig.

I waded through the well-behaved crowd of excited teens to see a film that is truly an original, with no numerals to follow.

Turner Classic Movies continued its big-screen enterprise with a special showing of "To Kill A Mockingbird" in celebration of Universal Studio's 100th anniversary and that film's 50th.

Thankfully, no one's had the hair-brained idea of remaking this black-and-white classic, adding some contemporary visual effects or bust-'em-up violence for the sake of today's audience. Nor has anyone decided a sequel was in order.

Gregory Peck's legacy as Atticus Finch, a superhero in a seersucker suit who drinks lemonade on his porch, remains unsullied, gracefully holding up, like the film, to the test of time.

Written during the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement but set in the Jim Crow-era 1930s, "To Kill A Mockingbird" needs no follow-up. It's far more intriguing to imagine the future of Scout, Jem and Atticus after the trial that forever changed Maycomb, Ala.

One of the most noble heroes ever, Atticus Finch might have lived to see the passage of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, in which the Supreme Court struck down the separate-but-equal segregation of public schools. He might have seen photos of Rosa Parks being arrested after refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., on a December day in 1955, sparking a bus boycott that sent the South careening down the Civil Rights byway. Heck, the fair-minded Atticus Finch would have defended Rosa Parks and joined the bus boycott. He'd surely have been a voice of reason as the South was nudged out of the 1860s and into the 1960s.

As for Scout and Jem, it's hard to believe they wouldn't have become Civil Rights activists, inspired by the actions of the father they adored.

They'd have condemned Gov. George Wallace as he attempted to block two black students from attending the University of Alabama in 1963. They'd have grieved the death of four little girls, murdered by a bomb planted in Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. Although they'd never see Atticus play football as they'd dreamed, they'd have seen Bear Bryant integrate his football team at Alabama. They'd have marched for equality with the Rev. Martin Luther King, from Montgomery to Mobile, and stood in rapt awe when he declared, "I Have a Dream."

Before those stirring words were spoken, Atticus Finch had a dream. His, too, was of desegregation, of fairness and kindness, of laws that protected all. He taught those principals to his children, and demonstrated his belief in them by defending a black man falsely accused of rape.

He took on the unpopular legal case because, "If I didn't, I couldn't hold my head up in town," he tells 6-year-old Scout. The passion with which he defends the doomed Tom Robinson, from staking out a spot in front of the jail to protect him from a lynch mob, to delivering one of the most compelling courtroom speeches ever captured on celluloid, makes Atticus Finch an inspiring figure whose ideals never dull with time.

Scout and Jem would have lived to see the positive changes that resulted from their father's righteous fight, including the election of this country's first black president. They also would know that the lessons of Atticus Finch are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago.

Their home state of Alabama is challenging the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the Supreme Court. Seriously, in the wake of Republican leaders in several states attempting to suppress voting prior to the recently concluded presidential election, the Supreme Court is going to decide the validity and need of the federal government approving changes to state voting laws.

Maybe instead of listening to the voices in the political parties of their choice before tackling this issue, they should sit and watch "To Kill a Mockingbird" together, ask themselves, "What Would Atticus Do?" and then decide.